What are you doing now, career-wise (or what do you plan to do after graduating)?

I am currently working on a masters degree in medical sciences. The program has given me the opportunity to learn and test along side first-year medical students, providing an amazing experience as to what life is going to be like as a medical student. During the course of my masters studies, I was granted an offer to attend medical school which I will begin in August 2014. My aspirations are to join the front-line of health care and focus my practice in family medicine in areas of living that are medically underserved.

What is one thing that you really appreciated about our program at Oregon Tech?

Oregon Tech likes to pride itself in the small student-faculty ratio. While I appreciated the dynamics of the small class size and the availability of the instructor after lecture hours, the quality of education is what makes the Biology-Health Sciences program unique. What provides the motive force for the success of the program and its students are the brilliant educators and their exceptional talent to deliver practical knowledge necessary for professional school. If I had to pick one thing that I really appreciated about the Biology-Health Sciences program it would be having the privilege of learning from an array of incredibly intelligent and accomplished, yet humble, instructors.

What is one piece of advice that you would give to a student in our program today?

One of the most difficult challenges we are faced with, especially being a student, is figuring out what we want to do with this life and we are given little time to decide. My advice to everyone in this program, life mapped out or not, is to volunteer your time in as many different community-centered programs that you can afford yourself to. Get involved in a club on campus as this will be the easiest and least time consuming way to find volunteering opportunities because they will already have done this research for you.

If you think you do not have time to volunteer during your undergraduate studies, wait until professional school; you will really know what it is like to not have time for anything. Exposing yourself to different aspects of the community via patient care, shadowing practitioners in different modalities of medicine, or anything improving the quality of living for others will help you realize your potential and what you are meant to do with your time on this rock.